


when it's over, you're the start

by nausicaa_of_phaeacia



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Bobbi-centric, F/M, Gen, Mackingbird - Freeform, Post "Maveth", Season/Series 03, before everything gets jossed i guess, otp: my favourite idealist, probably Civil War times
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-08
Updated: 2016-03-08
Packaged: 2018-05-25 10:20:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,452
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6191236
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nausicaa_of_phaeacia/pseuds/nausicaa_of_phaeacia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bobbi wants to resent Mack for having made her team up with Hunter, she really does, but that would be too easy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	when it's over, you're the start

**Author's Note:**

  * For [notcaycepollard](https://archiveofourown.org/users/notcaycepollard/gifts), [zauberer_sirin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/zauberer_sirin/gifts).
  * Inspired by [on the level](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4930030) by [notcaycepollard](https://archiveofourown.org/users/notcaycepollard/pseuds/notcaycepollard). 



> So I was totally going to write something romantic and/or sexy and/or badass, then came up with this instead. I wrote it because we know Bobbi and Hunter are going to have a spin-off and basically leave Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (together, apparently) and because that means that all the chemistry and alleged background history we got from Bobbi and Mack is going to get jossed very soon.
> 
> Meaning that basically, I wrote this so I could write what I wanted before that, but it turned out to be something that could just as well have been written afterwards, I guess. It's not all that shippy and I apologize. I guess I shouldn't listen to Bill Evans or Chet Baker as I'm writing fic.
> 
> Also, this is the first fic I've ever written about these two, so I have no idea what I'm doing _at all_.

Bobbi wants to resent Mack for having made her team up with Hunter, she really does, but that would be too easy; instead, she grabs Hunter’s butterfly knife from in-between the scattered takeout boxes (it does make him gasp, and it’s sort of a nice summary of their trust issues not even a ring could fix) to cut open the leg of her jeans (it’s the other leg this time, just a scratch, but she’s been distracted lately). Sure, she would have preferred to go with Mack, but given that he’s still in the position of Director and his diplomacy in the face of the current government crisis keeps saving lives, she can’t really blame him.

Hunter’s blaming everyone, basically, and that’s not news. When it’s not “Coulson’s stupid strategies” or the “freaking jerk Talbot”, it’s the “bloody receptionist” or the “goddamn cab driver”, and it’s making her weary. It’s only been days since they left, but they have already gotten caught between fronts; right now, they shouldn’t be showing alliance to anyone and that’s kind of hard when you’re waiting for an extraction team.

After two weeks, they decide to get some significant distance between their followers and their heels, and of course it goes south. It goes south because Lance Hunter apparently can’t tell good from bad intel. It goes south because he still smells of beer when they’re standing back to back in a small alley, gun in hand, heart throbbing. And it’s not surprising that Bobbi wishes Mack were here, almost prays, her fingertips around the trigger, chest heaving, Hunter’s sweaty back against hers, too much smoke around for them to find a way out. _This is it,_ she thinks, _goodbye, Mack. I just -_

“Bob.”  
It startles her.  
“ _Bobbi_.” Hunter. Again.  
She tries to whisper. “ _What?_ ”  
“Nothing, it’s just – if today’s my last, I just want you to know that –“  
“Don’t, Lance.”  
“– that I’m sorry.”  
“What do you – “  
“Sorry that we didn’t get to revisit last night.”

She can hear a sleazy smile with this, and she wishes he’d never changed, she wishes _she’d_ changed, learned how to be happy as a partner, well, as a _spouse_ ; she wishes she’d learned how to push her needs aside, resisted the urge to just _go out there_ again and again. It’s something she’s never learned how to hide, and even though it’s probably what destroyed her marriage (labelling it that still seems strange to her; it was a lifeline, a hidden parachute), it’s also the only thing she’s proud of. It’s the reason she’s made it this far (and on particularly bad nights, she tells herself over and over again how that’s actually what Romanova must be like; not that she’d be one to tell though).

They must be completely surrounded by now, and there’s a tap on her shoulder, Hunter yelling, “We have to split up! I’ll find you after it’s over. Run, Bob –“, then he’s just gone, Bobbi hoping he’s made it out alive, but then again, she doesn’t hear anything that sounds particularly lethal. _Don’t die out there,_ she thinks, and if she had time for that, she’d probably spend a few minutes mourning after him, but given current circumstances, she just calculates the easiest exit. Thanks to all the smoke, there’s salty water in her eyes anyway.

 

***

 

It’s not the first time she’s done this: found her way unscathed through an ongoing manhunt; it’s the first time she’s doing this alone. Sure, she’s run so many missions completely on her own, it’s not entirely unfamiliar, but this, running for her life with nobody to look after her six, this is new, and she can’t say she’s too thrilled. Of course, she manages; she’s always been a light traveller, and proud of her transformation skills. Her hair’s short now, not unlike Daisy’s, and a cherry red – the shade is something new, too. They’re all just covers to her, really, the colours protecting her like a sleeve does the record, shielding her from scratches and greasy fingers, and from the dust that’s bound to settle on things left in a corner for too long.

A few low-profile bed & breakfasts and packs of hair-dye later, she finally thinks she can breathe again, and it’s not just because her life’s not in immediate danger anymore, it’s more than that. It would be too easy to say that it’s also partly due to Hunter’s absence, but the lack of his nagging comments, the absence of half-creased empty beer cans, the fact that she’s actually able to keep herself together without Hunter’s smile (it’s the smile she’d dedicated her marriage to, and the one thing that’s kept her going during these past few weeks of constant running) – it helps her see things she hasn’t thought about in a long time.

She’s always indulged him; she’d never thought Lance could actually stop acting like a suburban teenager whenever insecure about something. It’s the one relationship she’s had where there’d always been very clear terms, very clear conditions and requirements. It had been the perfect arrangement during the Academy, mostly the reason she’s survived her education (except the fact that she’d almost failed her final exam because being unattached had been a prerequisite and the jury hadn’t trusted her half-rushed statement), and the soon-after off-the-record wedding a promise of ongoing partnership, of not being left alone. Bullets, blood, alcohol and undercover personae had transformed that promise, bent it into the narrow constraints of a habit, a loneliness countermeasure, and destroyed it by means of retaliative divorce.

Not that Bobbi hasn’t seen anything else, but after their radio-silence, that’s exactly what they’ve circled back to: a loneliness countermeasure. Understandably, that works much better when there are neither emotional, nor contractual expectations, and that’s how after a while, Mack wasn’t sure which bunk door to knock on in the mornings as he was waiting for Bobbi to join him in the gym. And it didn’t take Bobbi long to realize how it was more the careful five thirty a.m. knock on her door than the impatient eleven forty-five p.m.

A few days later, she takes up her morning yoga again and it keeps reminding her of Mack, and she almost wishes there were a shy knock at her hotel room door, one of the kind where you can hear the respect that comes with it, the kind that actually asks, _is it alright that I’m here right now?_

 

***

 

Somehow, she’s been made (for a second, she worries they might have gotten to Hunter); the hotel room doesn’t exactly look like something you’d want to put a guest in anymore, and she just runs, runs, up and out onto the roof, jumps over balcony fences and laundry baskets, gunshots being fired around her, and as she hurls herself behind a broad chimney, she wonders how she never saw this coming.

Her leg still hurts and getting to her back-up revolver takes her a little too long. “On your six!,” someone yells, and she turns around and fires just in time. Breathless, she turns around, her face half-relief, half-terror as she’s squinting to see who’s shooting at the three remaining suits on the far end of the roof. Leaning far out, her cheek almost sweeping the concrete, she fires one, two precise shots, making the third one go down without a sound.

She puts herself together quickly, limb to limb, brushes over her split lip, rushes over to the person who’d called out for her. He’s been hiding behind a large vent, and there are broad shoulders, there’s a deep voice, smiling, saying “Agent 19”, and then there are those eyes.

He approaches her, but she looks so shattered, so shocked, that he slows down and instead of hugging her, just carefully takes her hand.  
“Barbara.”  
She blinks, and her expression changes almost imperceptibly; she briefly squeezes his fingers before pulling her hand away.  
“How did you know how to – “  
“I’ve been around the whole time.”  
“What – Since when –“  
“Since Hunter went off the grid. Never been more than three blocks away.”  
“Have you been following me?”  
He sighs. “No. I just figured I’d be your backup in case you needed one.”  
“But you’re the Director.”  
“I have a Deputy Director.”  
“Who –“  
“Coulson.”

She runs her fingers through her hair, dust on her hands, exhaustion written all over her face, and it looks like she’s going to fall apart, even though she’s trying her hardest not to.  
They just stand there, her shoulders trembling, her eyes dry until they find Mack’s, and she wordlessly lets him hold her, cover her as though he were protecting her not from things to come, but from those already past.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Feedback would be much appreciated :)  
> Title's taken from Florence & the Machine's 'No Light, No Light'.
> 
> Bobbi/Mack is obviously not my main ship, so I'm curious as to how you liked this one. I'm sorry if they are a little out of character, I have only admired the ship from a distance so far.


End file.
